Perfect Persicaria
Alison Farnsworth share picks out the perfect Persicaria for your garden
Persicaria is a genus of herbaceous perennial plants in the Polygonaceae (knotweed) family. They are found in a variety of habits worldwide. Although there are some invasive species in the family, many are tidy clump-formers, not thugs, which are excellent garden plants being long-lived, reliable, robust, low maintenance plants that thrive and flower in the garden with a minimum of fuss.
They have dock-like leaves topped with upright, narrow flowers for a long period from late summer through autumn. Ideally, they prefer a rich, moist soil but are very adaptable and tough enough to deal with drier conditions and will thrive in most reasonable soils. They are also not fussy about the PH of the soil, being happy in acid or alkaline soil.
All the species are beneficial to wildlife, providing nectar and pollen throughout their flowering season, attracting honeybees, butterflies and other beneficial insects in summer and early autumn. Pests are rarely a problem; they don’t suffer from any major pests or diseases.
For gardeners, they prolong interest and colour as the season progresses and as such, are loved by garden designers such as Piet Oudolf for their naturalistic charm and performance.
Some of my personal favourites are:
Persicaria amplexicaulis:
Whilst the leaves at the base of most amplexicaulis are quite coarse, the flowering spikes are elegant and have an ethereal beauty, particularly in Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Alba’, having elegant spikes of white flowers and Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Rosea’, elegant spikes of pale pink flowers.
Other varieties of P. amplexicaulis that are distinctive and are great garden plants are P. amplexicaulis ‘Orangefield’, with coral, or salmon-pink, flower spikes; P. amplexicaulis ‘Rowden Gem’, a good lilac-pink colour, again very distinctive; P. amplexicaulis ‘Pink Elephant’, one of the shortest cultivars with long sugary-pink, twisting flowering spikes (like elephants’ trunks!).
Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Eastfield’ is a rarely seen and rather special form with brilliantly variegated, cream splashed foliage, turning greener in summer and bright pink in autumn. The leaves keep their colour better in a partly shaded spot.
Persicaria microcephala ‘Red Dragon’:
An excellent foliage plant with dark maroon, reddish and silver-white leaves. They can be rather changeable in colour depending on the sun / light conditions but are always interesting.
Persicaria runcinata ‘Purple Fantasy’:
A spreading, vigorous variety with triangular leaves, patterned with chevrons of green, burgundy-purple and silver-white. This is a bit thuggish but is easy to pull out .
Persicaria tenuicaulis:
This is a choice little woodlander, quite unlike any other of the common species. A lovely, demure little cultivar from Japan reaching only 15cm in height. It makes low, neat groundcover, with slowly creeping rhizomes and cute little white flower spikes in spring.
Persicaria virginiana ‘Painter’s Palette’:
A very striking plant with variegated foliage.; Each leaf is marbled with green, cream, pinkish-red and brown with no two leaves being alike. Tiny rat-tail wisps of tiny reddish flowers.
NB: The genus Persicaria has recently undergone revision with some plants being moved to Bistorta and Koenigia. Pesicaria amplexicaulis is now Bistorta amplexicaulis.
Bridge Farm Plants grown a wide range of choice and rare perennials at their Derbyshire nursery.
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Text and images: copyright Alison Farnsworth.